Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

At the start of the year, the World Food Program issued a forecast of where it expects to find the worst hunger crises this year. The report, called the Global Hotspots 2020, identifies 15 major food…

Dr. Roseanne Njiru is a sociologist at the University of Nairobi who has conducted cutting edge field research that finds a link between healthcare and peacebuilding. Specifically, she examines the …

For a brief period this fall, it appeared that the crisis in Yemen was de-escalating. Fighting had reached some of its lowest levels since 2015, when Saudi Arabia led an international coalition to in…

There is a category of diseases that sickens, injures and kills the poorest people on the planet. These are called Neglected Tropical Diseases or NTDs You may be familiar with some of them, like lepr…

Aid work can be a dangerous business. According to the latest verified data, 131 aid workers were killed in the line of duty in 2018. Many more were injured in serious attacks.  

According to my gues…

At the time of recording, the coronavirus outbreak that originated in China has infected over 4,500 people -- though that number is sure to dramatically increase in the coming days. The vast majorit…

In the midst of the impeachment drama unfolding in Washington, DC a rare thing happened: Republicans and Democrats came together and in an overwhelmingly bi-partisan move, supported a bill known as t…

Burkina Faso, the landlocked country in West Africa, is in the midst of an escalating humanitarian emergency. Over half a million people have been displaced in the last year -- a 500% increase from o…

On January 12 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti.  Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. Millions more were made homeless. Around the world, there was a huge outpouring of supp…

The conflict in Syria is entering a new phase. Over the last several years Syrian government forces, backed by outside powers like Russia and Iran, have steadily regained control of territory held by…

We may be in for a very turbulent year of nuclear diplomacy with North Korea

Since 2018, North Korea has had a self-imposed moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons and long range missiles, li…

I spoke to my guest today, Ilan Goldenberg, just a couple hours after Donald Trump addressed the nation following an Iranian missile attack on bases in Iraq. The Iranian attack, of course, was in ret…

In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya muslims were driven from their homes in Myanmar. At the time, a UN official called this a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." And today, the government …

Pablo Yanguas is a research fellow at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. He is the author of the new book "Why We Lie About Aid: Development and the Messy Politics of C…

Dr. Joanne Liu lead Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders from 2013 to this past September. Listen back to her 2017 conversation in which she discusses why she joined MSF, and how MSF has e…

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created in 2002 as a partnership between governments, philanthropies and civil society.  At the time, these three diseases were completely …

India's prime minister Narendra Modi was re-elected to office in May in what was a landslide victory for his BJP party.  Modi is a Hindu nationalist in a diverse country that includes one of the worl…

The crisis in Libya is about to get much worse. Nine months ago a renegade general named Khalifa Hiftar launched an attack on the internationally recognized and UN-backed government in Tripoli. That …

It's December at the United Nations.  Just weeks before many delegates and staff take time off for the holidays. But as the year winds down, some issues are heating up. North Korea is once again domi…

Over the summer, millions of people in Hong Kong took to the streets in an unprecedented protest against a proposed law that could allow for the extradition of people in Hong Kong to mainland china. …